


Reminder

by Dedicate Kiwicrocus (cranky__crocus)



Series: SMACKDOWN '11 Round Two - Team Discipline [9]
Category: Emelan - Tamora Pierce
Genre: F/F, Goldenlake, smackdown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-21
Updated: 2011-05-21
Packaged: 2017-10-19 16:12:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/202736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cranky__crocus/pseuds/Dedicate%20Kiwicrocus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“What are—what are you doing?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reminder

**Author's Note:**

> Written for SMACKDOWN at Goldenlake: fiefgoldenlake.proboards.com

“Lark.” Rosethorn’s voice was hoarse as she roused from sleep. She glanced down to the mass of black curls resting on her chest and fingered through them, admiring the softness compared to the firm feel of Lark’s head. Her voice was slow with sleep and the endeavour to be precise despite her slur, which was always worst upon waking. “Thought a cat was—was sitting on my chest.”

            “In a manner of speaking,” Lark mumbled as she rolled over, face toward the woman and ear pressed above her breast.

            “What are—what are you _doing_?”

            Lark was quiet for a moment, but the look of vulnerability and fear that crossed her face was loud. She breathed along with Rosethorn: deep breath in, deep breath out, deep breath in… Lark’s eyes opened and closed with the rhythm of it.

            “I’m listening to your heart beat,” she explained at last, in a whisper.

            “Why? It hasn’t changed.”

            “So _you_ may say,” Lark countered, nuzzling her cheek and nose against Rosethorn’s chest and neck. “ _I_ have had to worry too many times that it would stop—and it did, once. You can’t expect me to forget that. Your heart _stopped_.”

            “And started again, thanks to the mischief and unruliness of four children with far too much power.” Rosie almost grinned, but she saw the depth of mingled fear and relief on Lark’s face and stopped. Rosethorn drew a breath, which Lark drew with her. “What can I do to help?”

            “Keep it beating,” Lark answered. She pressed her ear to the spot again and sighed out her breath with Rosie’s. “Let me be reminded sometimes.”

            “Whenever you need, Lark—it’s yours after all,” Rosie responded immediately, almost without thought. She did laugh then at the sickly-sweet declaration of love that had escaped her lips. She grinned. “Just don’t wake me up fearing Little Bear has mistaken me for his bedding—if I want any end of the gargantuan beast, it’s the other one.”

            Lark nodded against her chest—too invested to even chuckle—and remained there, listening to the strength of the double-beat beneath Rosie’s ribs: lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub.

            Rosethorn traced the ridges of Lark’s ear and smiled at the rays of dawn sunlight greeting the room. Lark may need the reminder that it beats, Rosethorn mused, but she herself never needed the reminder that it beat for someone else; that she never forgot.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! (:


End file.
